Volume 9, Number 3
May 1985

Two Face-Up Copiers Marketed in U.S.

The American company that was developing a face-up copier has
gone Out of business, which makes the copiers developed in Britain
more interesting than they were before. There is a big one called
the Image Digitiser, which can do anything; it is made by
Optronics. The Selectec Duo Copy costs 1/4 to 1/3 as much,
and is made by Select Trading Ltd. Both were developed for the
British Library, both use a V-shaped cradle, and both are now being
offered for sale in America.

The Image Digitiser has a reading head which houses a high
resolution linescan camera. This camera scans a page in 6 seconds,
at 200 pixels per horizontal and vertical inch, and sends the image
to a printer. A fast printer can print a page in less than 10
seconds. The image can also be transmitted via modem to another
library, or stored, or enlarged or reduced. Optronics hopes to
market it for legal, medical, insurance and banking purposes as
well. The Digitiser alone, without the intelligent interface with
store or any extras, costs £19,600; with all the extras, it is
£26,925. The company also offers an interface to a fiber optic
cable network and to an optical disc for mass data storage. Contact
Optronics Ltd., Cambridge Research Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4
4BH, England.

The Selectec Duo Copy does it all with mirrors, inside both the
copier and the "module," which corresponds to the reading head of
the Digitiser. Mita Industrial, a well-established Japanese company,
manufactures the model chosen, the Mita DC211 plain paper copier
using a dry toner. It can make a copy every three seconds, not
counting page-turning time. Cost is estimated at £6950;
discounts and rental or leasing schemes may be available. Contact
Select Trading Ltd., Ronans Grange, Chavey Down Road, Brackness,
Berks. RG12 6LY, England.